Thomas Cotton

Early purchaser of land in Tobago, among the signatories of the 1781 address of inhabitants on the departure of Lt Governor Ferguson.

1. Described as 'merchant, Tobago' in an index of correspondents of Alexander Houston & Co., Glasgow 1776-1806. The evidence of the will of 'Thomas Cotton merchant of the parish of St Bride and now bound to the island of Barbados in America', proved 06/10/1783, is inconclusive as to whether the testator is the same Thomas Cotton as the Tobago land purchaser: the will contains no mention of property in the West Indies, and simply leaves half his estate to Thomas Jones of St Michael Poultry and William Cotton of same, and half to his sisters Bridget, Mary, Susannah, Catherine, Jane Ann and Ann of Worcester.

2. Thomas Cotton was shown as the Present Proprietor in 1773 of Barbados Bay (St George) Lot no. 6 originally purchased by Roger Smith 19/03/1767 and Lot no. 15 originally purchased by Archibald Kennedy which (together with Lot no. 13, omitted by Fowler) came to form the Cradley estate.

1. Ingram, Manuscript sources for the History of the West Indies SJH 878 p. 473; PROB 11/1109/64.

2. 'Tables showing the Lots in each Parish, numbered as originally granted - the original Grantee - the name of the Lot, or lots, if one has been acquired, and the present Possessor where there is one' and 'A Table, showing the Estates in cultivation in 1832, and their Owners, in 1832, copied from the list appended to Byres' map of that date, with those in cultivation in 1862', Henry Iles Woodcock, A History of Tobago (Ayr: Smith and Grant, 1867; new impression London: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1971); John Fowler, A summary account of the present flourishing state of the respectable colony of Tobago in the British West Indies illustrated with a map of the island and a plan of its settlement, agreeably to the sales by his Majesty’s Commissioners (London: A Grant, 1774) pp. 32-33.